Advise and Consent: Amid shouts from supporting protesters in the gallery, Democratic senators attempted to stall the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Judge Brett Kavanaugh from its opening moment. It was a raucous political fight. It was old time hockey.

As Republican Sen. Charles Grassley attempted to welcome Kavanaugh and his family, Calif. Sen. Kamala Harris interrupted and asked to be recognized. She was followed by New Jersey’s Corey Booker and Connecticut’s Richard Blumenthal, who argued that the senators had been delivered 42,000 pages of documents Monday night regarding Kavanaugh’s record and given no time to review them. Blumenthal asked for an adjournment to allow senators to read the documents but Grassley bulled his way through.

Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin said, “We waited for more than year with a vacancy on the Supreme Court under the direction of your leader in the U.S. Senate…That we cannot take a few days or weeks to have a complete review of Judge Kavanaugh’s record is unfair to the American people.”

The answer was “no.”

Eventually the hearing got under way. Calif Sen. Diane Feinstein said to Kavanaugh, “The president that nominated you has said, ‘I will nominate someone who is anti-choice and pro-gun.’ And we believe what he said.”

Finally allowed to make an opening statement, Kavanaugh said he attributed much of his judicial temperament to “my mom.” He said, “ A judge must be independent and must interpret the law, not make the law. A judge must interpret statutes as written. A judge must interpret the Constitution as written, informed by history and tradition and precedent.”

Booklet: One of President Trump’s lawyers told him that if he testifies in front of the Special Counsel he’s going to end up in an orange jumpsuit, according to the new book by Pulitzer-winner Bob Woodward. The 448-page book, “Fear: Trump in the White House,” is scheduled for release on Sept. 11^th.

The book describes a White House in chaos as aides try to protect the country from actions of the President. The book says aides actually hide documents from Trump so he won’t make decisions damaging to world and national security.

According to Woodward, Chief of staff John Kelly describes Trump as an “idiot” and “unhinged.” Defense Secretary James Mattis says Trump has the understanding of “a fifth or sixth grader.” Trump’s former personal lawyer John Dowd calls the President  “a fucking liar.”

In one passage Woodward quotes Chief of Staff John Kelly saying, “He’s an idiot. It’s pointless to try to convince him of anything. He’s gone off the rails. We’re in crazytown.”

Kelly denies saying that and the White House describes the book as a bunch of “fabricated stories.” Trump tweeted, “Their quotes were made up frauds, a con on the public.”

NY Times reporter Maggie Haberman tweeted, “Not sure what part of the Woodward book quotes Kelly is denying, but multiple current and former officials say they’re heard him say ‘crazytown,’ ‘worst job in the world’ and something about Trump not listening to him.”

Woodward, who made his fame breaking the Watergate story that resulted in President Nixon’s resignation, bases the book on background interviews with people present at scenes he describes. Woodward is known for recording his conversations, but he does not provide transcripts in the book.

The author writes that Trump failed in a mock interview set up by Dowd and that was what resulted in the “orange jumpsuit” remark. Dowd denies the account and also denies Woodward’s story that Dowd and another Trump lawyer re-enacted the mock interview for Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Woodward said he made multiple attempts to get an interview with Trump and never got an answer. Finally Trump called him after the manuscript was complete. During an 11-minute conversation recorded by Woodward, Trump said this was the first he heard about it, except for having heard about it from Sen. Lindsey Graham.

Trump:  “I’m just hearing about it. And I heard — I did hear from Lindsey, but I’m just hearing about it. So we’re going to have a very inaccurate book, and that’s too bad. But I don’t blame you entirely.

BW: No, it’s — it’s going to be accurate, I promise.

Trump: Yeah, okay. Well, accurate is that nobody’s ever done a better job than I’m doing as president. That I can tell you.”

Make Their Day: Only hours after President Trump issued a threat to Syria, Russian bombers attacked one of the last rebel holdouts in the country. Trump had tweeted, “President Bashar al-Assad of Syria must not recklessly attack Idlib Province. The Russians and Iranians would be making a grave humanitarian mistake to take part in this potential human tragedy. Hundreds of thousands of people could be killed. Don’t let that happen!”

Do Putin and Assad pay attention to Twitter?

Spy vs. Spy: British authorities have named two Russian suspects in the use of a nerve agent to attempt killing former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal. A British woman later died after being accidentally exposed to the nerve poison.

Metropolitan Police said the two men had arrived at Gatwick Airport from Moscow March 2nd and stayed in an East London hotel before travelling to Salisbury and smearing Skripal’s doorknob with the agent Novichok.

Both suspects are back in Russia where they can’t be extradited to face charges.

The Roundup: Amazon followed Apple yesterday, briefly crossing the mark of $1 trillion in value. — Arizona’s governor has named former Sen John Kyl to replace the late Sen. John McCain. He is believed to be acceptable to both Trump and McCain voters. — Tropical Storm Gordon made landfall near the Alabama-Mississippi border last night without becoming a hurricane. — Nike stock dropped yesterday after the company announced that protesting quarterback Colin Kaepernick would be the face of their new ad campaign. Some people said they were going to burn their shoes. Just do it.

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